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Leafy Greens Salad with Chickpeas, Feta, and Sumac Dressing

This Leafy Greens Salad with Roasted Chickpeas and Feta is perfect for Mediterranean Dressing with Sumac, but if you don't want to make the dressing any lemony vinaigrette will work. This tasty salad is meatless, gluten-free, and South Beach Diet Phase One, and if you use the chickpeas sparingly it's pretty low in carbs as well.

(It's the first Monday of a brand new year, so for Meatless Monday and our month of Daily Phase One Recipes, I'm featuring this Leafy Greens Salad with Roasted Chickpeas, Feta, and Mediterranean Sumac Dressing that I first posted in May last year. This delicious idea will turn any combination of lettuce + leafy greens into a flavor buzz that will really make your mouth happy!

Now that you've seen my new favorite salad dressing, I thought I'd show you a salad that's just perfect for the Shake-in-a-Jar Mediterranean Dressing with Red Wine Vinegar, Lemon Juice, and Sumac. This is the type of salad I might make if I was having friends for dinner and wanted a side salad that was a bit of a wow, or I'd eat a double portion of it for a big lunch salad.

There are endless salad combinations that would taste good with the Mediterranean Sumac Dressing, but the leafy greens, roasted chickpeas (also called garbanzos), and Feta in this salad really complement the dressing.

You can use a variety of different types of greens in this salad, but I encourage you to use two different types of greens for more flavor variety and to bump up the nutrients. I made the salad in the photos with green leaf lettuce and spinach, but other greens that would be good include Romaine lettuce, butter lettuce, red leaf lettuce, baby mixed greens, kale, and arugula.

Preheat the oven to 400F/200C while you rinse and drain a can of garbanzo beans. (I pick off the skins, but you don't have to if you're not quite as fussy as me.)

Toss the chickpeas with 2 tsp. each of olive oil and finely minced fresh garlic.

Spread chickpeas out on a baking sheet and roast until they're just starting to get crispy, about 20-25 minutes (depending on how crisp you like them.)

Here's how my chickpeas looked after about 23 minutes, when I thought they were done. (There were a few browned spots on the underneath that didn't show in this photo.)

Tear up 2-3 cups of lettuce of your choice and wash in the salad spinner with cold water so it's nice and crisp, then spin dry.

I love this organic baby spinach, but you could also use baby kale, arugula, or mixed baby greens.

I also washed the spinach with cold water and dried so it would be crisp.

I used about 2 ounces of Feta for two large salads, but you could use less if you're not a huge fan of feta, or use any type of cheese that appeals to you.

Ingredients:
1 can (15 oz.) chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained well (This is more than enough chickpeas for the recipe, but you can save them in the fridge for another time.)
2 tsp. olive oil
2 tsp. finely minced garlic
about 3 cups of washed lettuce such as green leaf, romaine, butter lettuce, or red leaf
about 3 cups of washed greens such as spinach, baby kale, mixed greens, or arugula
1-2 oz. crumbled Feta (or other cheese of your choice) Mediterranean Dressing with Red Wine Vinegar, Lemon Juice, and Sumac
(You can substitute any type of dressing that you like if you don't want to make the Mediterranean Dressing.)
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Instructions:

Preheat oven or toaster oven to 400F/200C. Put the chickpeas in a colander placed in the sink and rinse well with cold water (until you no longer see foam.) Let chickpeas drain well (or blot dry with paper towels.) When chickpeas are dry, toss with the olive oil and garlic and spread out on a roasting pan that you've sprayed with olive oil or nonstick spray. Roast until the chickpeas are starting to crisp, about 20-25 minutes. Let cool.

Wash the lettuce and greens one at a time in a salad spinner, using cold water to crisp the greens. Be sure to spin so they're very dry. Put lettuce and greens in a bowl and toss with enough dressing to moisten the greens.

Arrange greens in two or four salad bowls, sprinkle a small handful of chickpeas and a couple of tablespoons of crumbled Feta over each, season with salt and fresh ground black pepper, and serve right away.

Everything in this salad and the dressing is a low-glycemic ingredient, great for any phase of the South Beach Diet or any type of low-glycemic eating plan and if you don't eat too many chickpeas, it's pretty low in carbs as well..

I chose the South Beach Diet to manage my weight partly so I wouldn't have to count calories, carbs, points, or fat grams, but if you want nutritional information for a recipe, I recommend entering the recipe into Calorie Count, which will calculate it for you. Or if you're a member of Yummly, you can use the Yum button on my site to save the recipe and see the nutritional information there.

More Salads with Sumac
(Recipes from other blogs not always South Beach Diet friendly; check ingredients.)

(Want even more recipes? I find these recipes from other blogs using Food Blog Search.)

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Hi Kayla: Made this salad and the dressing for lunch today - still munching on it but wanted to post a review while memory is fresh.

The roasted chickpeas are so tasty. I'd like to find other ways to use them.

The dressing is fabulous. (Disclaimer: I didn't have Sumac so used Zatar, didn't have Greek seasoning so used Herbs d Province and extra oregano) - the lemon gives the dressing a fresh taste. It's nearly 90 in Virginia today. When you wrote that this salad would be perfect for a summer day, you were right.

I love your salads - am making my way through your extensive collection of salad recipes. Never a dull salad. I do think you are incapable of making a mediocre salad!

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